The Mall shopping centre Tuscany

But let us return to the Arno and look at the area to the south of its left bank. Between Pisa and the river Cecina the coast around Livorno towers high above the sea. This little river rises in the Colline Metallifere, and abounds in echoes of Etruscan culture. It flows info the sea almost as soon as it has passed the small town that is called after it, and to the south of this the coast once again becomes
sandy and low-lying. This is the Maremma, the ancient Maritima now almost completely reclaimed, though it has not yet entirely lost the wonder of its great pinewoods, its pasturelands, its marshes abounding in wildfowl. The Maremma is divided into three parts: the "pisana" (be­tween Cecina and the estuary of the Cornia), the "grosse­tana" (the coast between Cornia, Albegna and the lower reaches of the Ombrane), and the "senese" (upper reach-es of the Ombrane), but it also extends as far as Monte Amiata, the Val d'Orcia, the Colline Metallifere and the so-called "Crete" (the bare, day landscape south of Siena).
In the mid-valley of the Arno, between Empoli and San Miniato, we turn south into the broadest and most inter-esting volley in centrai Tuscany, the Val d'Elsa, along which ran the famous mediaeval road, the Via Francigena.